Comments

Comment by mybadgamertag

I wonder if this scales linearly with the health of the target, (ie. 50% health will give 10% bonus 100% will give 0%)

Comment by mak484

I have broken down all of the current masteries into two categories: unique, interesting masteries and flat bonus masteries.

Unique, interesting masteries:

Flat bonus masteries:

Why this mastery is interestingThis is the paralell to the mastery resto druids get. This mastery is especially powerful because it works better when you need it more. A 20% bonus to heals on a target about to die will always win over a flat 10% bonus to all heals. It will be interesting to see how much bonus will be given when the target is at almost full health, but no matter what this is a powerful ability.

Comment by BigRed007

I'm not sure if it's worth it... we might be better off by stacking spirit and haste? That's how i'm specced and gemmed right now, reforged spirit/haste with a 30% crit about... i DID reforge all mastery, and it didnt seem to do much, maybe around lvl 83 i'll feel it with more mastery items?

Comment by faia

-out of date, beta info, ignore this-

Comment by Maice

I think if the healing environment is really going to be changing come Cata where you won't be able to spam cheap heals and keep everyone topped off (I'm looking at YOU druids), this mastery will become much more powerful than it is in the current raiding scene.

Comment by lunargecko

First of all, Mastery is not a bad stat, just bad shaman think it is. Here's the breakpoints where mastery is better than other stats.When target is < 100% hp: Mastery is better than haste for HR, Riptide, UEWhen target is < 80% hp: Mastery is better than crit for HR and CHWhen target is < 62% hp: Mastery is better than crit for single target healsWhen target is < 44% hp: Mastery is your strongest stat period

Comment by lunargecko

"Better" as in throughput apparently.

Comment by lunargecko

Considering in raids, a lot of healing is done on targets at the 60% level or lower, (a lot of the time, near death healing is common) and virtually all is done at lower than 80%, mastery is truly a good stat to have. In addition to this, it increases HPM, while haste does not.

On the other side, crit brings added hps for ELW, ES and Riptide hot, while Mastery effects none of these. So while the breakpoints are rather high, the healing from non mastery sources means crit can hold a higher value point for point. This means that for overall healing, the targets you heal need to be lower than the breakpoints. In addition, crit gives increased mana regen and further intangible benefit from the 10% damage reduction buff.

So where does this all lead? Which should I stack? Both seem good. Well the answer is both are good. But there are generalizations where one might hold more value over the other. As a general rule, if you're finding you're constantly healing people below 50%-60% hp, then mastery will be better for you. If you're constantly just keeping people topped up, then crit will be better for you. From anecdotal information from other shaman and from my own personal results, the best breakdowns are:

The reasoning is that for 5mans, you're rarely dealing with a lot of people who are low life. Since you're mostly just topping people up with HW and Riptide because of easily maintainable damage, people rarely get low enough hp for mastery to really shine. For tank healing it's obvious that the 10% damage buff is just too good to pass on so crit needs to be a priority. Not to mention you're single target focusing with raid assist. The increased mana gain in the long run from all your single target spells will allow you to bomb big heals longer than mastery will give you.

But for progression raid healing, things change. For starters, a LOT of the encounters follow along a path of completely destroying the raid to near death over and over. Even with crit effecting your hots, the overall benefit from mastery on your HR and CH powers through this and gives your heals a completely hax level of healing done. For these types of encounters where you're constantly healing people at or below that 50-60% threshold, mastery is easily your best stat. So stack it to the moon over crit.

Comment by L33tsauce

In 4.1, Deep Healing will affect ALL healing, rather than just direct healing. This will certainly make Mastery a more worth-while stat for resto shammies.

Comment by Voidmire

This mastery is in no way bad so to speak, it just depends on what sitution you are gearing for. 10 man progression? you'll most likely want crit over mastery (i am in no way excluding haste as an important stat, anywhere between 900 and 1k is a nice solid number for me, simply the age old argument of crit versus mastery). 25 man progression? Mastery all the way. your fellow raiders talents complement our mana regen so well that i literally reforge all my crit out for mastery, so long as to reasonably try and hit a solid number, as a 13.50 still only counts as a 13. Many resto shamans will swear up and down that crit will produce the better mana regen and such. yes, crit directly adds to our regen. but in a 25 raid, you have so many other mana regenerating effects, why gimp your healing throughput on progression that will more often than not have multiple people at the levels of hp where our mastery shines? This DOES however bring up an important point to remember. Our mastery is for progression, not farming.

To give an example, my guild downs Heroic Magmaw 25 refularly, and with the resto shaman mastery how it is, i can easily top healing meters without excessive overhealing. A fight like that, the top tier of content that still pushes the damage threshold a ways makes us like unto healing gods in a fashion. The week of 4.1, things were so buggy, we ended up doing magmaw on regular as our kiter couldnt keep a connection up. On a regular fight, where the majority of the raid outgears the content and the damage really is minimal, our mastery falls VERY short. my heals rarely if ever during the encounter benefitted from my mastery.

For those of you skeptical, with a mastery of 15, im still able to maintain 916 haste and 16% crit. mana regen is not an issue.

Comment by Fysche

Just to take note, mastery does not have soft caps. 13.50 is 13.50, your spells will scale accordingly. It is just that the tooltip does not reflect this and round down to 13 instead. However, just switching a few gear having 13.90 and 13.00 you will see the slight difference (instead of none).

Comment by Emberlock

Leveled my alt shamy to 85 and got him some blue and 359 ilvl gear and entered some bgs

Let me tell u this Deep Healing is made for PvP

Did 91k GHW on some guy (he was at 11k hp if i remember right) and i was like o.O

He had Earth Shield (18% more healing) i used Unleash Elements (30%) and Focused Insight (30%) and i didnt know mastery scales LIKE MAD!